Archive for November 28th, 2008

A pro-family organization in Pennsylvania is raising questions about the lack of outrage over the murder of a man named Shephard in a dispute involving homosexuality.

No, not Matthew Shepard, whose murder in Wyoming a decade ago has been used by “gay” activists ever since as a reason to demand enhanced “hate” crimes for anyone who perpetrates criminal activity against a homosexual.

This case involves an innocent man who was murdered by a homosexual when the victim resisted his attacker’s sexual advances.

The latest case involves Jason Shephard, 23, who was attacked and killed by Bill Smithson, an openly homosexual man, who slipped the victim the date rape drug GHD and attempted to rape him.

“When the young man resisted his sexual advances, he was strangled,” reported the American Family Association of Pennsylvania.

“The American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), remembers another Shepard who was murdered 10 years ago in the state of Wyoming and homosexual activists used that murder to push for hate crimes laws to include ‘sexual orientation,’ the organization said yesterday, following Smithson’s sentencing to life in prison.

But unlike with Matthew Shepard’s death, there’s been no outcry from the ranks of homosexual activists.

“The silence of homosexuals is deafening when it comes to their own murdering innocent people. The murders of both Matthew Shepard and Jason Shephard were tragic, but one murder is being used by homosexual activists to push their agenda of special rights. No additional laws are needed – murder is murder, but apparently the murder of Matthew Shepard was more important for those pushing an agenda,” said Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

The Islamic terrorists in Mumbai targeted Westerners and wealthy Indians. They chose huge, 4000 room hotels and other large, highly symbolic targets such as cafes and the old Victoria railway station. But they also carefully chose a very tiny building, Nariman House, also a highly symbolic location. Chabad is a worldwide movement of Hasidic Jews who do not proselytize, who are not violent, who live to help others and who have “shluchim,” or messengers-in-service on every continent.

On late Wednesday afternoon, when I was asked to write about the Mumbai massacre and I learned that Chabad House had been seized–I knew, I knew, that the fate of the Jews in Nariman House had been sealed. Of course, I dared not write this. But really, did anyone doubt for a moment that, in addition to Americans, Europeans, and wealthy Indians (both Hindu and Muslim), that these barbarians would kill all the known and unarmed Jews they could find?

May the families of those who have been murdered in Mumbai be comforted. May Brooklyn-born Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Israeli-born Rivka Holtzberg rest in peace. May their families be comforted. May their rescued 2 year-old son, Moishe, bless and elevate them in the Afterlife. May the families of the other dead hostages in Chabad House also be comforted.

From the agitation and anger of the crowds, the din of the car horns and the shouts of “Civil rights now!” and “Bigots!” one would have been forgiven for thinking that the protesters were denouncing some horrific assault on human freedom.

But no, the demonstrations – and church vandalisms and business boycotts – were in protest of California voters‚ passage of the November ballot measure known as Proposition 8, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Any two Californians can, as before, register as “domestic partners” and have the very same rights and responsibilities as married couples under state law. All Proposition 8 sought to do was preserve in law what the word “marriage” has meant for millennia.

Those, though, who were unhappy with the electorate’s decision wasted no time in taking to the streets of dozens of American cities and towns to rail against the audacity – the bigotry, as they proclaimed it – of considering gender germane to marriage.

IN SOME cities, tens of thousands turned out for raucous rallies; in many instances, epithets were hurled at counterdemonstrators and even uninvolved bystanders. Although protesters claimed the mantle of the American civil rights movement, several black observers of the Los Angeles demonstration had what has been called the “N-bomb” dropped on them by infuriated demonstrators – a presumed tribute to the fact that blacks voted 2-1 in favor of the proposition. A San Diego family with a “Yes on 8” sign on their front lawn had their car’s tires slashed. A San Francisco area group launched a campaign to revoke the tax-exempt status of the Mormon Church because of its support of the marriage initiative. Graffiti was spray-painted on a Mormon church near Sacramento. A group of about 30 activists from a group called “Bash Back!” stormed into a Lansing, Michigan church, unfurled a rainbow flag at the pulpit and proceeded to disrupt services by banging on cans and shouting.

Some, even among those who assign meaning to traditional morality, are not greatly bothered by the push to expand the meaning of marriage. They are content to let people call things whatever they want, and regard the societal push to revamp social mores as benign. The vehemence, violence and general obnoxiousness that characterized some of the protests, though, should give them pause.

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, I’m running a bit behind on this.
For those who may not know, Muslim terrorist attacked Mumbai, India on Wednesday. They targeted civilians, specifically locations that service Westerners. Aside from the financial businesses they targeted a Jewish center as well.
So Here are some of the headlines out of India over the last several days:

Several sites in Mumbai, India’s financial capital, were hit Wednesday night by a wave of terror attacks, reportedly aimed at Americans and Britons, that left dozens dead and potentially hundreds injured as Indian forces battled with terrorist gunmen to free hostages from two luxury hotels.

Several staff members were killed at the Taj Mahal hotel, and India’s NDTV reported Thursday morning that gunfire still was erupting as part of an ongoing “desperate hostage situation” there, with three or four terrorists inside. Earlier, some of the hostages were rescued when a fire broke out.

Gunmen reportedly had taken hostages elsewhere in the city, including the Oberoi hotel and a hospital, though the status at those locations wasn’t immediately clear as dawn broke.

Casualty figures varied, with the Associated Press reporting at least 82 dead. Reuters reported 86 people were killed, including 11 police officers, and 250 people were injured. The Associated Press, quoting a senior police official, said the chief of India’s anti-terror squad was one of the dead.

Of the gunmen, at least six were dead and nine had been arrested, according to the Associated Press.

It isn’t clear yet what motivated the attacks, which also targeted a popular tourist attraction and a crowded train station, though eyewitnesses said gunmen were heard shouting questions seeking people with American and British passports.

MUMBAI, India — Masked Indian commandos dropped from helicopters Friday onto the roof of a Jewish center in Mumbai where Muslim militants were holed up, possibly with hostages, as sharpshooters kept up a steady stream of fire at the five-story building.

The assault was punctuated by gunshots and explosions from within the building as the forces cleared the building floor-by floor. Elsewhere in the city, commandos scoured two luxury hotels for suspected Muslim attackers still holed up more than a day after a chain of attacks across India’s financial center by the militants left at least 119 people dead.

Hundreds of people had been captive in the two hotels, many locking themselves in their rooms or trying to hide as the gunmen roamed the buildings.

MUMBAI, India — Indian forces began launching grenades at the Taj Mahal hotel Friday night, where one or two militants were believed to be holed up in a ballroom, officials said.

More than 15 loud explosions could be heard from inside the hotel. Eyewitnesses say there is continuous gunfire.

The Taj Mahal hotel was wracked by hours of intermittent gunfire and explosions throughout the day, even though authorities said they had cleared it of gunmen the night before.

At the same time, Indian commandos are searching rooms of the hotel looking for victims.

More than 150 people were killed in the violence that began when gunmen attacked 10 sites across India’s financial capital Wednesday night. Fifteen foreigners, including five Americans, were among the dead.

Earlier, commandos who stormed the headquarters of an ultra-orthodox Jewish group found the bodies of six hostages inside, Indian and Israeli rescue officials said.

The discovery of the bodies brought to a tragic end the two-day effort to rescue the Jewish hostages from their Islamic terrorist captors.

The New York-based Chabad-Lubavitch movement confirmed Friday that a New York rabbi and his wife were among the dead.

A spokesman, Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, said Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were killed inside the Mumbai center. The couple ran the movement’s local headquarters, which was one of the sites attacked.

The couple’s toddler son, Moshe Holtzberg, was taken out of the center by an employee, and is now with his grandparents.

A delegation from Israel’s ZAKA emergency medical services unit entered the building after the raid and reported through an Indian aide that the hostages and two gunmen were dead, a ZAKA spokesman in Israel said. The spokesman had no information on the hostages’ identities or whether there were wounded inside.

Jewish law requires the burial of a dead person’s entire body, and the mission of the ultra-Orthodox ZAKA volunteers is to rescue the living — and in the case of the dead, carry out the task of gathering up all collectable pieces of flesh and blood.

Two other Americans, Alan Scherr, 58, and daughter Naomi, 13, were in a cafe Wednesday night in Mumbai when they were killed, said Bobbie Garvey, a spokeswoman for the Synchronicity Foundation. The U.S. State Department confirmed their deaths on Friday morning.

The meditation group said in a statement that four other members of the 25-person group — two Americans and two Canadians — who were staying at the Oberoi Hotel were wounded by gunfire, and were believed in stable condition.

The Associated Press learned the name of one victim: Andi Varagona of Nashville, Tenn. She called her mother from a hospital Thursday and said she had been shot in the arm and leg while eating dinner at the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower hotel.

She said another Tennessee woman traveling with her was also injured, according to the mother, Celeste Varagona, but the woman’s identity was not immediately available.